Chapter 9: what are you a child.
Elias stood in the devastated clearing, the aftermath of Liora’s Hurricane’s Embrace still settling around them. The air was thick with the scent of torn earth and splintered wood. He closed his eyes, drawing on everything he had learned over the years. The visualization came sharply — but not as a copy.
I would make it my own.
Mana surged within him, vast. He didn’t push the storm outward. Instead, he pulled.
The reverse began.
A violent inward vortex formed, sucking everything toward the center with terrifying force. Winds howled at speeds that would register near 400 km/h on an Earth anemometer — far faster and more savage than Liora’s outward hurricane. Trees that had survived the first spell were wrenched from the ground and dragged inward like helpless prey. The air screamed as it was violently compressed. But the true horror came from the water.
Where Liora had summoned rain and moisture to fuel cutting winds, Elias’s version drew every drop of moisture from the surrounding air, soil, and even the shattered vegetation. Torrential water converged from all directions in crushing sheets, turning the vortex into a nightmarish maelstrom of liquid and wind. It felt like the polar opposite of hell — not burning flames, but a cold, suffocating abyss that drowned and pulverized everything it consumed. The storm roared inward with relentless hunger, a devouring maw of water and gale.
From the calm center where Elias and Liora stood, the contrast was surreal. The eye remained eerily peaceful, shafts of light piercing through the spinning walls of water and debris. Outside, the forest was being erased in a different, perhaps even more horrifying way — trees snapped and funneled inward, monsters that had survived the first storm now screaming as they were pulled into the crushing currents, bodies smashed against one another or drowned in the violent flood of water.
The destruction radius expanded rapidly. Three hundred meters of absolute demolition, now marked by a sunken crater where everything had been violently sucked toward the center and annihilated.
Liora watched with wide violet eyes, her staff lowered in awe.
When Elias finally released the spell, the vortex collapsed with a thunderous implosion, leaving behind a scarred, flooded wasteland. He stood perfectly steady, breathing normally. No staff. No visible exhaustion. His small seven-year-old frame showed no strain at all.
Liora was silent for a long moment before she spoke, voice filled with genuine reverence.
“Elias… you have done it. You are now one of only thirty-five,no, thirty six today,mages in the entire known world to have ever reached the Rare class in any school of magic. A title so few ever attain. And you… you cast it without a staff, with no mana exhaustion whatsoever.” She shook her head, and exclaimed,"what are you a child",a rare smile breaking across her elegant features. “The student has surpassed the teacher in every way possible. What I spent sixty years perfecting was eclipsed by a child of seven. You are a rare gem, no a generational anomaly Elias Voss. No elf, despite our natural magical proficiency and spirit casting, possesses talent like yours. I am truly glad I was the one to teach you.”
"Elias felt a surge of pride . Finally… something I’m not average at, yay for me "
They returned to the Voss household later that afternoon. The ride back was quiet, liora stared at Elias , lost in thought.
"This child, he's no ordinary child, intermediate rank is a rank that most adult mages peak at but this guy reached rare class at age seven, damn, amazing doesn't even begin to cover it, he's a miracle child,a true anomaly such as which the world has never seen before, his level of natural talent is unreasonable for a child his age, is he even human to begin with?
She immediately shook away the thought.
No, he's my student, and I should be glad, this child would rewrite the rules of magic and would achieve great things."
Upon their arrival at the voss house, Liora and Selene made their announcement.
“The time has come for us to leave,” Liora said gently to the gathered family. “We have fulfilled our duty here. Elias no longer needs a full-time tutor.”
Selene, now fourteen and strikingly beautiful with her flowing silver hair and graceful elven features, stepped forward. She handed Elias a thick, handwritten leather-bound book.
“This is for you,” she said softly. “The basics of divine magic — healing and detoxification. Study it well, tiny genius.”
Elias’s heart shattered. Tears welled up in his eyes as he clutched the book. “Please… don’t go. Both of you. Stay a little longer. I… I don’t want you to leave.”
His voice cracked with raw emotion. The family smiled indulgently, assuming it was simply a child’s attachment.
Selene placed a gentle hand on his head. “Don’t be so emotional, Elias. We’ll meet again someday, somewhere. You never can tell in this wide world.”
With final farewells and thanks to the Voss family, the two elves departed. The carriage carried them away down the village road until they disappeared from sight.
Elaric patted Elias’s shoulder. “You’ll be fine, son. Boys your age get attached easily.”
Lira hugged him warmly. “It’s alright, dear. This is natural.”
But they didn’t know. They couldn’t know.
Deep in his mind, Elias was breaking. "I struggled so much in both lives to form real connections. Valuable friends. People who saw me as more than average. The fear of abandonment is still clawing at me viciously — the same terror that had driven me to that stupid end back in Japan. Not again. Please, not again."
Yet as the evening settled over the house, a quiet resolve mixed with the pain. "They were right. Life moved on. And wherever I go whatever I become, I'll always cherish these memories — the training, the teasing, the genuine care.
"For a broken boy like me who had died miserably once before, this pain was proof I was finally learning to care again."